Standards

New Anthropometric Data Available

By Bruce Bradtmiller, HFES Institute Division Chair

     The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently released a new document, Technical Report 7250-2, "Basic human body measurements for technological design - Part 2: Statistical summaries of body measurements from individual ISO populations." The technical report contains summary statistics for a number of anthropometric dimensions from various countries around the world. Along with ISO 7250-3 "Basic human body measurements for technological design - Part 3: Worldwide and regional design values for use in ISO equipment standards," currently in preparation, TR 7250-2 aims to fundamentally change the way anthropometric data are incorporated into product standards.

     For many years, the technical committees charged with writing various standards - whether for earth-moving machinery, digital human models, or escape hatches for small boats - had to research the anthropometric data needed for those standards. Often, these experts in bulldozers, digital models, or boat design did not have access to the most current anthropometric data from their respective countries or from other ISO member countries. As a result, anthropometric data tables in these standards have been inconsistent at best and woefully out of date at worst. With TR 7250-2, available anthropometric data from a variety of countries are presented in a single resource. And the document's technical report status, as opposed to a more formal ISO standard, means that it can be easily updated as new anthropometric data become available.

     This technical report was prepared by Technical Committee 159, Ergonomics, Subcommittee 3, Anthropometry and Biomechanics, which has experts in anthropometry from around the world (including two from the United States). This means that the data submitted for this document are vetted and checked for reasonableness prior to inclusion in the report, giving users some assurance of the quality of the summarized data.

     Product standards such as those for bulldozers or boats can't make use of the data in TR 7250-2 directly, however. Although it is important to have access to up-to-date information, product standards themselves are generated and reviewed relatively slowly. As a practical matter, all those standards can't change every time a new data set is available. Furthermore, TR 7250-2 represents the individual member countries separately; there is no synthesis of data across countries. That's where TR 7250-3 comes in. This standard is reviewed on the same schedule as are product standards, so it will be stable for periods of at least 5 years. And in its development, the experts have taken the most current information in TR 7250-2 and synthesized it to determine, among all the countries, the lowest 5th percentile value, the highest 95th percentile, and so on. This means the users of product standards can be certain that their designs will accommodate the desired proportion of the user population when they are designing for a worldwide market. Informative annexes contain information specific to Asia and Europe, so that designers of products to be marketed in those regions can use regionally appropriate dimensional criteria.

     To obtain published ISO documents, or to check on the status of documents in process, visit www.iso.org. For more information on HFES's role in representing the United States in developing ergonomics standards, contact me at bruce@anthrotech.net.

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